The National Caucus of Labor Committees (NCLC) is a political organization in the United States founded and controlled by political activist Lyndon LaRouche until his 2019 death. LaRouche sometimes described the NCLC as a "philosophical association". It is the main organization within the LaRouche movement. LaRouche was the association's leader, and the political views of the NCLC are virtually indistinguishable from those of LaRouche.
The highest group within the NCLC is the National Executive Committee (NEC), described as the "inner leadership circle", [1] or "an elite circle of insiders", [2] which "oversees policy". [3] The next most senior group is the National Committee (NC), [2] which is reportedly "one step beneath the NEC". [4]
The NCLC had it origins in the 1968 convention of the Students for a Democratic Society. It comprised people who had been expelled from the Maoist Progressive Labor Party, an SDS faction, and students from Columbia University in New York City. It called itself the "SDS Labor Committee" or the "National Caucus of SDS Labor Committees". [5] [6] Led by LaRouche, it included "New Left lieutenants" Ed Spannaus, Nancy Spannaus, and Tony Papert, as well as Paul Milkman, Paul Gallagher, Leif Johnson, Tony Chaitkin, and Steve Fraser. [7] [8] The Labor Committee was known for promoting a "socialist re-industrialization" of the economy, combined with confiscatory taxes on what it saw as wasteful and parasitic investment. It was expelled from SDS for taking the side of the teachers' union in the Ocean Hill-Brownsville strike. [5] It was originally a New Left organization influenced by Trotskyist ideas [9] as well as those of other Marxists such as Rosa Luxemburg, but opposed other New Left organizations which LaRouche said were dominated by the Ford Foundation, Institute for Policy Studies and Herbert Marcuse. [10]
The organization became the NCLC in January 1969. According to the Los Angeles Times, LaRouche writes in his autobiography that in 1971 the NCLC formed "intelligence units", and the following year started training members in paramilitary tactics. [11]
According to The Village Voice and The Washington Post , the NCLC became embroiled in the early 1970s in conflicts with other leftist groups, culminating in "Operation Mop-Up," which consisted of a series of physical attacks on members of rival left wing groups. [12]
During "Operation Mop-Up," LaRouche's New Solidarity reported NCLC confrontations with members of the Communist Party and Socialist Workers Party. One incident took place April 23, 1973 at a debate featuring Labor Committee mayoral candidate Tony Chaitkin. [13] The meeting erupted in a brawl, with chairs flying. Six people were treated for injuries at a local hospital. Following this incident, New Solidarity warned:
The clown show is over. The Labor Committee warns the Socialist Workers Party and its comrades-in-hysteria: when you did all the fighting for the Communist Party at the mayoral forum, we held back – we gave you a mild warning, though several of your members were bloodied and broken. But should you repeat as goons for the CP, we will put all of you in the hospital; we will deal with you as we are dealing with the Communist Party.
In November 1973, the FBI issued an internal memorandum that was later released under the Freedom of Information Act. Jeffrey Steinberg, LaRouche spokesperson and NCLC "director of counterintelligence", [14] described it as the "COINTELPRO memo", which he says showed "that the FBI was considering supporting an assassination attempt against LaRouche by the Communist Party USA." [15] LaRouche wrote in 1998:
The U.S. Communist Party was committed to putting the Labor Committees out of existence physically... Local law enforcement was curiously uncooperative, as they had been during prior physical attacks on myself and my friends. We knew that a 'fix' was in somewhere, probably from the FBI... We were left to our own resources. Tired of the beatings, we decided we had better prepare to defend ourselves if necessary. [16]
By the mid-1970s, the NCLC had abandoned Marxism altogether, in favor of what its members described as an American System approach. Press accounts describe shift to the right, with the NCLC establishing ties to the Ku Klux Klan and the Liberty Lobby. [17] The conservative Heritage Foundation issued a report which states that "neither the Left nor the Right has a thoroughly-documented explanation of the organization's nature or purposes." [18]
According to the Los Angeles Times, LaRouche said he met with representatives of the Soviet Union at the United Nations in 1974 and 1975 in order to discuss attacks by the Communist Party USA on the NCLC, and to propose that the CPUSA should be merged into the NCLC. He denied receiving any assistance from the Soviets. [19]
The NCLC established a paramilitary "officers training camp" in Argyle, New York in 1974, according to an FBI report. Members learned about "small unit tactics and strategy", and trained with nunchaku. The FBI documents reportedly also mention "beatings" and "brainwashings", claim that the group moved from far-left to far-right, and complain that NCLC sent in tips about wild conspiracies. [20]
In 1974, NCLC members admitted they had been harassing FBI agents for years. [21]
According to LaRouche in 1995, during the period 1976-1978 the NCLC ceased being a dues-paying membership organization, and made the transition to a "purely philosophical-legal organization," whose principal activities were either philosophical or in connection with legal cases against the COINTELPRO and related offenses of the FBI and associated agencies. [22]
In 1977, Costas Axios, NCLC chief of staff for New York, said of the NCLC: "We are socialist, but first we must establish an industrialist capitalist republic and rid this country of the Rockefeller anti-industrial, antitechnology monetarist dictatorship of today." According to The Washington Post, FBI memoranda of the time described the NCLC as a "clandestinely oriented group of political schizophrenics who have a paranoid preoccupation with Nelson Rockefeller and the CIA", and as a "violence-oriented Marxist revolutionary organization." [23]
The Los Angeles Times reported that by 1981, the NCLC was overseeing a network of companies and organizations that were budgeted to bring in $11.7 million in gross receipts annually. One company, Campaigner Publications Inc., was reported to have grossed $4.5 million in a four-month period. In a purported internal memo from 1981 LaRouche explained his position within the organization by saying, "I do not wish to hear, ever again, that I must wait until our legal council (sic) has assessed the wisdom of one of my decisions or that some members personal sensitivities must be taken into account...I promise you that I shall function, unrestrained, as a commanding general of a combat organization. Anyone who opposes my orders will, in the moral sense, be shot on the spot for insubordination." [24]
In 1984 the headquarters were moved from Manhattan to Leesburg, Virginia, a suburb of Washington D.C. [25]
The NCLC was indicted on charges of obstruction of justice in 1986 and its offices were searched. Federal prosecutors alleged that LaRouche "dominates and controls" the NCLC. A U.S. government memo reportedly said that "the primary purpose" of the NCLC is to support LaRouche in a lavish lifestyle and to "courier large sums of cash to secret depositories." [26] Over a dozen NCLC members, including LaRouche himself, were eventually indicted. [27] [ needs update ] (See also LaRouche criminal trials)
The NCLC launched the U.S. Labor Party (USLP), a registered political party, in 1972 [28] as its electoral arm and ran LaRouche for President of the United States on the USLP ticket in 1976 along with numerous candidates for lower office.
In 1979 LaRouche changed his political strategy to one of running in Democratic primaries rather than as a third party candidate. This resulted in the USLP being replaced by the National Democratic Policy Committee (NDPC,) a political action committee unassociated with the Democratic National Committee. [29]
The International Caucus of Labor Committees (ICLC) was founded as the philosophical nucleus for LaRouche movement operations worldwide. According to LaRouche the ICLC follows the "model of American founding father Benjamin Franklin's 'Junto' organization." [30]
The ICLC has affiliates in Canada, France, Italy, Germany, Poland, Hungary, Russia, Denmark, and Sweden, Australia, Philippines, along with Mexico and several South American countries.
Included are present and former NCLC or ICLC members who have authored books, edited publications, or led LaRouche-affiliated organizations or companies.
Lyndon Hermyle LaRouche Jr. was an American political activist who founded the LaRouche movement and its main organization, the National Caucus of Labor Committees (NCLC). He was a prominent conspiracy theorist and perennial presidential candidate. He began in far-left politics in the 1940s and later supported the civil rights movement, but in the 1970s he moved to the far-right. His movement is sometimes described as, or likened to, a cult. Convicted of fraud, he served five years in prison from 1989 to 1994.
The Schiller Institute is a German-based political and economic think tank founded in 1984 by Helga Zepp-LaRouche, with stated members in 50 countries. It is among the principal front organizations of the LaRouche movement. The institute's stated aim is to apply the ideas of the poet and philosopher Friedrich Schiller to what it calls the "contemporary world crisis." The Independent describes it as "an extremist political think-tank linked to a right-wing conspiracy theorist, Lyndon LaRouche." According to The Times, its aim is "to propagate [LaRouche's] increasingly wild anti-Semitic conspiracy theories."
The U.S. Labor Party (USLP) was an American political party formed in 1973 by the National Caucus of Labor Committees (NCLC). It served as a vehicle for Lyndon LaRouche to run for President of the United States in 1976, but it also sponsored many candidates for local offices as well as congressional and Senate seats between 1972 and 1979. After that the political arm of the NCLC was the National Democratic Policy Committee. The party was the subject of a number of controversies and lawsuits during its short existence.
Lyndon LaRouche (1922–2019) and the LaRouche movement have expressed controversial views on a wide variety of topics. The LaRouche movement is made up of activists who follow LaRouche's views.
The LaRouche criminal trials in the mid-1980s stemmed from federal and state investigations into the activities of American political activist Lyndon LaRouche and members of his movement. They were charged with conspiring to commit fraud and soliciting loans they had no intention of repaying. LaRouche and his supporters disputed the charges, claiming the trials were politically motivated.
Lyndon LaRouche's United States presidential campaigns were a controversial staple of American politics between 1976 and 2004. LaRouche ran for president on eight consecutive occasions, a record for any candidate, and tied Harold Stassen's record as a perennial candidate. LaRouche ran for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States seven times, beginning in 1980.
Proposition 64 was a proposition in the state of California on the November 4, 1986, ballot. It was an initiative statute that would have restored Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) to the list of communicable diseases. The measure was defeated by a margin of 71% to 29%.
Executive Intelligence Review (EIR) is a weekly newsmagazine founded in 1974 by the American political activist Lyndon LaRouche. Based in Leesburg, Virginia, it maintains offices in a number of countries, according to its masthead, including Wiesbaden, Berlin, Copenhagen, Paris, Melbourne, and Mexico City. As of 2009, the editor of EIR was Nancy Spannaus. As of 2015, it was reported that Nancy Spannaus was no longer editor-in-chief, that position being held jointly by Paul Gallagher and Tony Papert.
Webster Griffin Tarpley is an American writer, political activist, and conspiracy theorist. A one-time follower of Lyndon LaRouche, Tarpley is known for his role in the 9/11 truth movement, believing 9/11 was a false flag operation.
NCLC may refer to:
Michael O. Billington is an activist in the LaRouche Movement, Asia editor for the Executive Intelligence Review, and author of Reflections of an American Political Prisoner: the Repression and Promise of the LaRouche Movement.
Kenneth Lewis Kronberg was an American businessman and long-time member of the LaRouche movement, an organization founded by American political activist Lyndon LaRouche.
Anton "Tony" Chaitkin is an author, historian, and a former political activist with the LaRouche movement. He served as History Editor for Executive Intelligence Review.
Helga Zepp-LaRouche is a German political activist. She is the widow of American political activist Lyndon LaRouche, and the founder of the LaRouche movement's Schiller Institute, as well as the German Bürgerrechtsbewegung Solidarität party (BüSo).
The Worldwide LaRouche Youth Movement and the LaRouche Political Action Committee are part of the political organization of controversial American political figure Lyndon LaRouche. The LYM's "war room" is in Leesburg, Virginia, also the headquarters of LPAC. The LaRouche Youth Movement describes itself as an international political movement of young adults, led by Lyndon LaRouche, who promote the revival of classical humanist thought, organize politically to establish a new world economic system based on the power of human creativity to increase the power of the human individual in relation to the universe, and fight for a physical economy which can promote the general welfare of humanity, to develop and move towards better living conditions.
The LaRouche movement is a political and cultural network promoting the late Lyndon LaRouche and his ideas. It has included many organizations and companies around the world, which campaign, gather information and publish books and periodicals. LaRouche-aligned organizations include the National Caucus of Labor Committees, the Schiller Institute, the Worldwide LaRouche Youth Movement and, formerly, the U.S. Labor Party. The LaRouche movement has been called "cult-like" by The New York Times.
Fusion Energy Foundation (FEF) was an American non-profit think tank co-founded by Lyndon LaRouche in 1974 in New York. It promoted the construction of nuclear power plants, research into fusion power and beam weapons and other causes. The FEF was called fusion's greatest private supporter. It was praised by scientists like John Clarke, who said that the fusion community owed it a "debt of gratitude". By 1980, its main publication, Fusion, claimed 80,000 subscribers.
Roy Everett Frankhouser, Jr. was a Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan, a member of the American Nazi Party, a government informant, and a security consultant to Lyndon LaRouche. Frankhouser was reported by federal officials to have been arrested at least 142 times. In 2003 he told a reporter, "I'm accused of everything from the sinking of the Titanic to landing on the moon." He was convicted of federal crimes in at least three cases, including dealing in stolen explosives and obstruction of justice. Irwin Suall, of the Anti-Defamation League, called Frankhouser "a thread that runs through the history of American hate groups."
Under a variety of names and within a number of organizations over at least 17 years, the group around Harry Turner, or Turnerites was a presence within Trotskyism in the United States.
The Spartacist League/U.S. is a Trotskyist political grouping which is the United States section of the International Communist League, formerly the International Spartacist Tendency. This Spartacist League named themselves after the original Spartacus League of Weimar Republic in Germany, but has no formal descent from it. The League self-identifies as a "revolutionary communist" organization.
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